


Delectation

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Heartbeat Kink, Hurt/Comfort, Intoxication, M/M, Oral Sex, Recuperacoon Sex, Sopor Slime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The main lights are off and only the dim radiance of a computer screen lights the area, casting in relief the wires strewn about the floor and the golden surfaces of the beehouse mainframes against the wall. The screen displays multiple one-sided conversations from himself and others, teal and maroon and gray, trying and failing to make contact. "I know you're here, I can smell you. It's fucking gross," he adds before stumbling over something dark on the floor beside the computer chair.</p><p>"Sorry," it mumbles.</p><p>For the kinkmeme: a request for Karkat caring for a depressed Sollux, ending with recuperananigans. Reedited, extended, and retitled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delectation

**Author's Note:**

> The very first fill I wrote, over a year ago. Dialogue and prose worked over, longish parts restored that were cut due to LJ character limits.
> 
> Karkat's thought processes while intoxicated are based on a night when I was drunk and loved everyone in ways transcendent and unfathomable; I loved the whole world with such intensity, I was nearly in tears. Had you been there, dear reader - _whomever you are, whatever you do_ \- I would have hit on you a little.
> 
> Edit: Someone used the same title afterward, so I'll retitle. I'm not mad or anything (that would be silly and I like this person!), it just causes me anxiety to feel like our works will be confused with one another; not because any of it is bad, but because they're very different. I can't alter it on the kinkmeme though, so I hope it will not cause confusion!

The first thing that strikes Karkat upon entering the room is the smell, the overwhelming odor of unwashed hair and clothes, and he wrinkles his nose in disgust as he shuts the door behind him. The second thing that strikes him is a passing bee. He irritably bats it out of the air as it begins to buzz at him in an angry rhythm he doesn't understand.

"Sollux," he calls, glancing around at the old, discarded food containers and scattered games as he intrudes on the room. The main lights are off and only the dim radiance of a computer screen lights the area, casting in relief the wires strewn about the floor and the golden surfaces of the beehouse mainframes against the wall. The screen displays multiple one-sided conversations from himself and others, teal and maroon and gray, trying and failing to make contact. "I know you're here, I can smell you. It's fucking gross," he adds before stumbling over something dark on the floor beside the computer chair.

"Sorry," it mumbles. He leans down in surprise.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Sleeping." Sollux's hair is lank and oily, his glasses smudged, eyes half-closed and not at all luminous. "I'm tired."

"Why are you sleeping on the floor like a fucking idiot?" Sollux wordlessly rolls over, facing away from him. "Right, stupid question, it's because you are. Have you eaten?"

"I forgot."

"Goddamn it," Karkat grouses, storming over to the cupboards and crushing several games on the way with an air of justification, but the only food is a mostly-empty container of legume paste and a microwavable container of macaroni. The thermal hull relinquishes a jar of grubsauce and something that Karkat believes to have been pizza at some point but is now a welter of assorted exotic molds climbing up the inner walls of the box. Sparing the ex-pizza in the interest of scientific progress, Karkat dumps sauce on the macaroni and shoves it into the microwave before striding back across the room, kicking an empty soup can into the wall on the way with a dull metallic clunk.

"Wake up," he demands, leaning down to shake Sollux. He rolls onto his back too easily when pulled, his joints so loose and unresisting that Karkat shudders at the sight.

"What," he sighs, and even though it sounds like he's trying to stir up a little anger his eyes never open.

"Food. Get up."

"I'm not hungry."

"That's too fucking bad," Karkat retorts, seizing his arms to lift him and noticing how bony they are, how light he is. Sollux raises a thin hand to his forehead and reels as though standing is dizzying, nearly collapsing to the side. "Sit down," Karkat orders, pushing him to the table.

"I'm not really up to having company, KK."

"Yeah, you're really, really not," he snaps. Instead of offering the usual lisping retort, Sollux slumps in the hard kitchen chair, unkempt hair in his face as he lifts a hand to his forehead again. "Do you have a headache?"

"Seriously? What do you think." The harsh beep of the microwave startles them both; it creaks when Karkat opens it again and he grimaces at the dried food remnants plastered to the interior, bathed in sickly yellow light. He burns both hands on the bowl when he tries to take it out.

"Fuck, fuck, shit, ow," he rasps over and over as he runs it to the table, and though he has to make an extra trip to find a spoon, Sollux never bothers to look at him. He sits quietly, his gaze fixed on the table as Karkat's anger begins to give way to unease. "Eat," he commands.

"Fine," Sollux agrees listlessly, eating slowly without regard to the heat. His eyes cast a dim light over the food, covering the yellow sauce with an unhealthy luster.

"You better finish all of it," Karkat threatens, trying to fill the faintly buzzing silence because it's hard to watch Sollux's slow motions, his weird vulnerability, the quivering of his unsteady hands. He fumbles the spoon and bites his lip, his other hand white-knuckled on the edge of the table like he's trying not to float away. Seeing him so emotionally flayed, so broken, never feels normal. Karkat uncomfortably looks away.

"I'll try." It takes him a while to eat and to drink the glass of water Karkat forces on him, but obligingly he empties the bowl and places his thin hands palms-down on the table, stopping the tremors. "Sorry," he says in a careless voice, not looking up. "You can go, I'll be fine. It's not worth - what the fuck are you doing?" he snarls as Karkat hefts him from the chair with an irritable grunt.

"You smell disgusting and you're going to the ablution trap," Karkat tells him, hands locked tight around his upper arms, ushering him down the dark hallway to the hygieneblock.

* * *

"Who cares?" Sollux complains, lounging against the doorjamb as Karkat draws the bath. "If I get in my recuperacoon I'll just have to-"

"You'll do this now or I'll make you do it," Karkat grates, threateningly seizing the hem of his shirt. Sollux pushes his hands away with a low growl, but turns around and reluctantly takes it off.

"Fine. Don't look," he mumbles, but Karkat is already staring at his ribs, at the visible ridges of his vertebrae.

"Goddamn, have you been eating at all?"

"I said don't look, asshole. It's embarrassing." Sollux half-turns, his profile unhealthily skinny in the half-light, and before disrobing entirely directs an exhausted but withering glare at Karkat until he looks away. "You don't have to be here," he adds as he lowers himself into the semi-opaque fluid.

"Fuck that. I'll leave for five minutes and you'll pass out and drown." Karkat sits uneasily on the closed lid of the load gaper. Despite his attempts to avert his eyes as Sollux washes his hair, that thin body looks so frail against the thick purple walls of the trap that it's hard not to stare at his jutting bones; his form is all sharp angles and yet as harmlessly delicate as an anatomical model, not covered with wiry muscle like Karkat but slim and bare and smooth. Again he gets the uneasy sense that he's seeing some sort of pain too personal to witness, as though even the small action of bathing is overwhelming for Sollux. As he rinses his hair under the faucet and quickly glances over, Karkat looks hastily away from the ridged arch of his back, embarrassed by an emotion he's afraid to define.

"Don't look at me, dumbass. What did I say."

"I'm not, why the fuck would I want to," he snaps defensively. He stares at the ceiling for the duration, listening uncomfortably to the faint splashes to make sure Sollux isn't asleep and trying not to think of how he looks there, pale gray and slender and impossible to watch.

"Okay," Sollux eventually mumbles, lying back in the trap, "so, KK. I maybe need something to wear."

"Oh, shit, right. Hold on." He knows the small hive well, finds an identical outfit hanging in a tiny closet, and he takes the old clothes away to allow privacy as Sollux changes. They're crumpled and slightly stiff with old sweat and he disgustedly deposits them in what he is pretty certain is an incinerator chute. He turns to see Sollux frowning slightly, a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. His smudged shades are gone.

"Thanks," he mumbles around the toothbrush, eyebrows lowering.

"Get a new outfit, that one's fucking revolting," he retorts, secretly pleased to see the moody troll showing annoyance rather than apathy. Sollux's frown fades and he walks back to the other room to spit.

"You can go," he says again afterward, wandering casually back in and looking over at the recuperacoon. "I'm fine. I don't need anything else."

"Trying to get rid of me tho you can go back to thleep?" he needles, purposely lisping, but this time Sollux crosses his arms and doesn't rise to it.

"Yeah, sort of. I'm okay, thanks, so I don't really need you," he says flatly. "You don't need to stay here."

"You're not fine, dipshit," Karkat barks, annoyed at his ingratitude. "You're a skeleton taking unscheduled floor naps. If fine was a town or something, you wouldn't just be on some other continent, you'd be on a different planet for useless whining wigglers, looking for it with a telescope and failing because your eyes are too full of stupid yellow tears and it's fucking up the lens. That's how not fine you are." Instantly regret wells cold in his gut because in this state Sollux isn't strong enough to argue, just looks down and to the side and fitfully clenches his bony hands into fists over and over.

"Yeah," he finally says in a careless voice, expression closing off all at once, and the carefully studied blankness of his face is worse yet because Karkat is aware that it signifies pain. "I guess."

"Just go to sleep," Karkat says uncomfortably, pushing him toward the recuperacoon and suddenly halting. "We're still friends, right? Because I pretty much suck at this," he admits, tightening his fingers in the back of Sollux's shirt.

"At what," Sollux asks, his voice flat and hollow.

"Fixing shit, helping. Everything, sort of. I guess. I mean, sopor's what you needed anyway. Just get some fucking sleep, I'll go," he says, letting go and turning away, and he's halfway to the door when Sollux's voice stops him.

"KK, wait," he mumbles indistinctly, still looking off to the side, raising a hand to his forehead. "I don't mean, I'm not-" His voice rises uncertainly and this is the worst thing, the vocal version of the uncharacteristic weakness that is so painful to see, and no amount of looking away will make it avoidable.

"What?" Karkat asks finally, shifting his feet on the carpet.

"Not something that can be fixed," he answers savagely in an abrupt display of fury, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyelids. "It doesn't go away. I'm so fucked up I can't talk right. I can't say my own name. No one should have to put up with my shit." Karkat stares at his own shoes, momentarily unsure how to react to the sharp, broken edge of that voice. "You and AA show up and act like I'm not defective, talk to me like you don't hate or pity...I can't stop talking, fuck!"

"Then what am I meant to do?"

"You're meant to get out, but I don't want to be-" A pale gold tinge colors his cheekbones as he struggles, unnoticed as neither looks at the other. "I don't ask anyone," he says sharply, suddenly defensive. "I tell everyone to go away, I told AA to go away until she fucking went away, no one should have to deal with-"

"I _don't_ have to deal with you. No one's making me do it," Karkat interrupts sharply, letting irritation banish the discomfort. "Stop acting like you're an obligation, it's incredibly fucking annoying." This brings Sollux up short; he clenches his hands repeatedly at his sides again as though trying to gather himself, long teeth pressing into his lower lip. "If you want me here, say the word, I'll stay. I don't know shit you don't tell me. I'm not you, I'm not your moirail, I'm not a mind-reading freak."

"I told you we can't do that, dumbass," he responds bitterly. "If I could I'd know, I'd...fucking understand why you bother with my shit, why anyone-" He runs out of momentum and trails off, hands going lax at his sides. Karkat looks up, notices the pale golden color strengthening on his cheeks, and everything he is about to say evaporates.

"Are...Are you flushed right now?" he finally asks, his voice harsh and accusing, and even now Sollux doesn't look at him. "Are you _flushed_ for me?"

"Don't hate me. Just don't fucking hate me, I can't deal with that right now," he sighs instead, hand to his forehead. "Just get out, get out. Get out. Leave me alone." Karkat notices, suddenly unable and unwilling to stop staring at him, that standing causes him to sway unsteadily. Approaching, he reaches out and grasps his arms to steady him.

"I'm not leaving you alone, you pathetic dipshit," he says roughly. Sollux looks directly down at him, eyes widening in vague surprise, finally establishing eye contact. Suddenly it makes perfect sense that watching him in times of weakness is difficult. The realization of his own pity and the knowledge of its reciprocation sends a surge of excitement through Karkat; he feels his face warm in a visible blush, his body reacting to the faint, musky pheromones Sollux releases when touched.

"Are you..."

"I feel so fucking sorry for you half the time," he interrupts more loudly than intended, not looking away. "I have to stop you from doing anything stupider than usual."

"God, you're such an asshole," Sollux responds with something like heightened, anxious interest. "No one...no one else would feel bad enough for you to listen to all your bullshit and self-hatred, you're so fucking high-strung and whiny and a hopeless programmer and I - I deal with that, I can-"

"Yeah, I'm so lucky-" he interrupts with renewed intensity despite not knowing where to go with it, but falls silent as Sollux leans intently toward him.

"No, I'm lucky. I have a way to shut you up," he murmurs, stopping only when their noses nearly touch. "Of course you know my recuperacoon's big enough for...two."

Karkat shifts uncomfortably, leaning back. "F-fuck, you were just really - isn't that a little-"

"Therapeutic," he urges as his eyes flare brighter, "it's therapeutic, get in, I want this now."

"Ugh. Fine."

* * *

It takes only a few minutes for both to become relaxed, immersed in the sopor of the red half of the recuperacoon despite being clothed, and the pleasant haze makes it infinitely easier for Karkat to make a move. He isn't certain what exactly to do, his entire experience based on romantic comedies, porn, and being on occasion mercilessly and delightfully beaten by Terezi, but he would rather die than let Sollux know that no matter what his suspicions might be. He decides to take the initiative.

"I'm good for it, let me," Sollux protests with eyes already half-closed, but Karkat pushes his thin hands back against the wall. Deliberately, he laces his own fingers between the bony digits.

"If we're doing this shit, I'm taking care of you," he mumbles indistinctly against Sollux's throat, feeling the flutter of quick heartbeats against his lips. Long fingers close around his hands and he closes his eyes for a moment, inhaling the smell of clean hair and skin.

"KK-"

"Shut up," he murmurs, dragging the tip of his tongue along the tendon. Sollux relaxes slowly and shifts against him, thighs rubbing against his half-hard bulge. Everything is so smooth and languid that he thinks, given his own inexperience, that this alone would be enough if it only continued. "Don't do anything," he warns, certain that it won't be enough for the other troll. "Just keep your hands like that." Reluctantly he disentangles his fingers from Sollux's, immersing his hands in the sopor.

"Why, what are you - oh." The rest of the sentence leaves him as Karkat reaches down, groping blindly for a bulge and awkwardly rubbing it through the layer of denim. "Well, okay, I guess."

"See, what did I tell you," he says in irrational triumph, fumbling with the slick fabric, "I know what I'm doi - actually can you take all this off yourself, it's fucking hard when I can't see anything. Why didn't we do this part before."

"You said I couldn't move my hands, KK," Sollux remarks in a serious voice, looking down at him with interest, "so I don't know what you want from me."

"This is..." He looks up in annoyance. "This is the stupidest time for you to get your retarded sense of humor back."

"Just following orders, dipshit." Obligingly, he undresses psionically with minimal motion, eyes glowing as he lifts his feet. The slime obscures nearly everything, showing only his shoulders and a brief expanse of smooth pale gray beneath the shallow arc of his clavicle. Karkat can see his sternum, though, the bumps of the bone where it knits together in the center of his chest, and again he's stricken by Sollux's frailty.

"I'm gonna make you eat more later. And you better not use powers on me," Karkat threatens in an attempt to fill the silence. He watches the clothes dump themselves on the desk nearby, oozing sopor over the edge. "It's...it's cheating."

"Really? So I shouldn't do this." With a faint echo of his usual smirk, Sollux spreads his fingers wide.

"Shit!" Karkat yelps as his outfit is shredded by light, but just as he feels the warm prickling of psionic pressure move tangibly up his bare legs and he starts to worry about Sollux's intentions, the bicolored eyes dim.

"Wait," Sollux murmurs unsteadily, collapsing back against the wall as his glow fades. "I'm dizzy."

"Oh, fuck, are you all right?" Karkat asks, temporarily too startled by this to focus on the loss of his clothes.

"KK, I'm fine..." He trails off as their eyes meet. "I haven't been eating much. I'm okay, I'm into this, I just can't do anything special."

"Can you, uh..." Karkat makes a vague, wavy hand gesture of concern, looking slightly perplexed.

"I don't know what the fuck you're trying to convey there, but if it doesn't involve pleasuring you with my mind, probably."

"What, you can-" he starts with an air of amazement, then pauses. "No wait, yeah, I said I'd take care of you, you don't have to do anything. Wait, my clothes, you just-"

"Yeah, I took care of those." Sollux leans on him, pressing a half-hard bulge against his abdomen. "So maybe you could try taking care of this," he continues, murmuring directly into Karkat's ear in a special voice for the particularly dense.

"Oh god, yes," Karkat answers as though not noticing the tone, spitefully ignoring the bulge pressed against him as well as his own, idly tracing the pronounced ridges of vertebrae and ribs with his fingertips instead. Sollux moves against him slowly, frustrated and annoyed despite the sopor.

"God, KK, you're completely inept," he mumbles after a minute, obediently not using his hands. "When I'm up to it I'll fucking torture you until you beg, show you how it's meant to be done."

"Fine, whatever," Karkat answers carelessly, pushing him back against the wall again, feeling him settle on the narrow bench along the perimeter of the recuperacoon interior. To his delight, this makes Sollux slightly shorter than him. "But right now you're helpless without your 'thhhionicth,' dipshit. I can do whatever I want to you."

For a moment the bicolored eyes widen and he relishes that brief look of surprise as he reaches out to rub the larger set of horns with his hands, eliciting a choked moan as he leaves trails of red slime along the bone and membrane. "You're so fucking lucky I'm pitying you right now," he continues languidly, running his fingertips affectionately around the bases of the smaller set, tickling more than stimulating as Sollux squirms. "Let me show you how much." With a last caress of the larger horns, he impulsively takes a deep breath and sinks into the sopor.

The cool red fluid has a flat, vaguely sweet flavor but hardly conducts light, revealing nothing to his squinting eyes but a faintly tinted darkness as he crouches on the bottom. Despite this his hands quickly find legs, the bony domes of kneecaps, and as his fingers move along smooth thighs he acutely feels Sollux shiver in response to his touch. He almost smiles as he moves closer, tasting sweetness on his own lips.

As he closes his eyes, drawing his tongue experimentally up the inside of one thigh, he realizes that the sopor conducts sound; a quickly indrawn breath, and after his ears adjust further, the all-encompassing sound of Sollux's pulse filling the chamber as Karkat's hand finds the shaft in front of him and begins to stroke. It makes him nervous to open up fully in the sopor but he does it anyway, letting the viscous fluid fill his mouth as he engulfs the head of the yellow bulge, swirling his tongue awkwardly over the smooth skin and over the tip as he slips further down. He takes as much as he can with the back of his throat closed against the sopor, holding the base of the bulge in one hand as he slides along the length, trying to form a brisk rhythm despite the viscosity around him.

Clean and immersed in sweetness, Sollux has no flavor. The psionic's quiet breaths come faster already, interspersed with small hitches, and Karkat listens in satisfaction to the pounding of his heart in the darkness. There's an unexpected intimacy in knowing his arousal through sound alone; every time his breath pauses or the muted vibration of his voice filters through, tiny moans that Karkat is certain aren't expected to be heard, a bolt of white-hot desire arcs through his bulge in response and quickly he starts to ache. Distracted, he takes his other hand from a bony knee and starts to awkwardly, unevenly relieve the pain, lazily moving in time with the pounding of Sollux's heart. By the time he surfaces for air his chest burns and his head is light, but the vivid tone of Sollux's flush makes oxygen deprivation worthwhile.

"KK, let me use my hands."

"What the fuck for, I'm taking care of it," he mumbles, but no venom remains in his voice. A tendril of dizzy, soporific warmth uncurls in his mind.

"I want to touch you."

"No. No no no. Just appreciate this glorious display of pity I'm putting on for you, bro." He is surprised by the intensity of his own voice and, following that, the intensity of everything in general. "It is...the finest." Sollux stares at him for a moment, then abruptly grins.

"Is it...a _miracle_?" he asks with exaggerated eagerness. Karkat pauses, considering.

"Yes," he states with convincing solemnity, "it's a fucking miracle."

"Ehehe, excellent. Would you keep going?"

"If you'll shut up and let me." He waits for a moment, returning Sollux's inquisitive look with a glare. "Why aren't you saying anything."

"I've been rendered mute by this fucking miracle," Sollux responds, grin widening.

"Good, 'cause I said shut _up_ ," he repeats with emphasis before diving back in.

The second time he moves unhurriedly despite the sopor, lingering on the tip as he lazily pumps the rigid shaft, detecting bitterness with the sweetness as he runs his tongue up and down with increasing pressure along the sensitive ridge under the head. He moves up to draw the tip of his tongue slowly across the slit, tasting salt and feeling the bulge twitch in his hand as Sollux shifts uncomfortably and presses thin legs against his sides. Little as he knows what to do, Sollux still seems pleased by his attention when he takes the tip in his mouth again, pulling back when the psionic tries with small, hesitant motions to push further in.

For a moment Karkat vaguely wonders if there's anything more he needs to do, lets himself imagine things he could do and suddenly wants to do with Sollux. He closes his eyes more tightly as he envisions psionic force slipping into his own body, tries to imagine Sollux's delicate frame splayed beneath his, nook slick and receptive and hot for him. He never had devoted much thought to it previously, but suddenly the idea of spreading Sollux out on a concupiscent couch sounds like the best thing his thinkpan has ever dredged up; he shivers at the image as he finally obliges and takes as much as he can again, ungracefully laving the bulge with his tongue, feeling Sollux twitch again as his teeth lightly graze it. All at once it occurs to him that the psionic might return this favor, might part his collection of dangerous teeth and-

The ensuing burst of immediate want obliterates the realization entirely, fuzzing it out in a bright red flash of pleasure, but it fortunately occurs to him again a moment later. He feverishly thrusts into his own hand as he licks and sucks and loses his train of thought again in the surrounding fluid, the rhythmic pulse of Sollux's arousal. He's increasingly certain there are colors in the blackness now, swirling red and blue and yellow in time with the beat, but before he has the chance to track their motions behind his eyelids a rush of pleasure washes down his spine and carries his thoughts away in a bolt of pure vermilion.

Karkat nearly chokes as slim hands grip his horns tighter, bringing him back to awareness. It's against his orders but he knows that he needs it, shivering in pleasure as the long fingers curl and stroke over the membranes in an attempt to increase his pace. On the way up for breath he brings a mouthful of sopor and Sollux, eyes vague and hazy with pleasure, takes it without complaint as Karkat presses their mouths together. He indelicately shoves his tongue in with the sopor as his teeth click against protruding fangs, rubs his own bulge against Sollux's beneath the surface, awkward but uncaring.

"See, I'm fucking amazing at kissing," Karkat says informatively, ignoring the poorly concealed snort of laughter his remark evokes.

"I'm amazed," Sollux agrees through a pointed smile, running his fingers over the tips of the nubby horns.

"Shut up, what did I tell you. Anyway, I'm gonna finish, so...keep touching my horns so I don't drown. I will be _so fucking angry_ if I drown," he threatens, scowling.

"Mmm," Sollux sighs, lips and teeth painted with transparent red sopor in a way that lights Karkat's mind up with the same ideas for the third time. He stares, lost in a blank reverie until Sollux impatiently squeezes his horns to bring him back. "I won't let you, KK."

The third time is nearly the end, Sollux's fingers digging into the thickened membranes of the horn bases as he trembles, slim hips rocking forward in the fluid as his legs awkwardly encircle Karkat's shoulders. His obvious lack of embarrassment at being so into it makes Karkat giddy, strangely satisfied despite the pressure of his own desire; the thought evokes a brilliant red color that blossoms with fantastic warmth in his chest, spreading fractally. Dazed by the intensity and too overwhelmed for an instant to imagine anything else, he thinks that he has never seen anything more complicated.

As Sollux's hands tighten spasmodically, obviously urging him to hurry, Karkat pauses and rises to look at him. He's golden to the tips of his pointed ears, skin glossy, eyes shimmering faintly with colorful light as he pants. He opens his mouth further as though to speak, but all that comes out is a faint, impatient moan.

"You're pathetic," Karkat murmurs breathlessly, kissing the fanged mouth again and caressing the sopor-smeared horns before diving for the last time, "you're so fucking beautiful," and Sollux only needs a moment more of attention and coaxing beneath the surface before he's shuddering, gasping, the sounds of his pulse and breath loud and erratic in the small chamber as his bitter genetic material releases. His fingers tighten, squeezing and pulling without rhythm, and Karkat shivers and keens inaudibly as he nearly climaxes at the rough handling.

He trembles helpless beneath the surface for a long and dizzy moment, coaxing Sollux through with his mouth despite the electricity flooding his own body, until he feels the psionic relax against him. He works himself quickly without rising, his mind a blur of half-formed fantasies and hallucinations as the slim fingers urgently work the bases of his horns. The lack of oxygen nearly makes him faint with the rush as his own material pours suddenly into the slime, his hips jerkily pistoning; he clutches Sollux's leg with shaking hands, steadying himself as the fingers slowly uncurl from his horns. For a moment he presses his cheek against a bony knee and can't recall the last time he felt so good, so washed out and clean and victorious. Carelessly rinsing his mouth with sopor, he rises and sits on the small seat.

"I'm tired," he slurs, resting his head on Sollux's shoulder, pressing against him. "Also incredible. Tell me I'm incredible."

"I didn't know you could hold your breath like that," he murmurs, resting his cheek against Karkat's matted hair and closing his eyes.

"Fucking dedication."

"I think you mean a miracle."

"No, dipshit, miracles aren't real. I'll just...forget you ever said anything so stupid. Out of pity."

"I'll forget you mocked my lisp and made such a shitty dinner and threatened to take advantage of me."

"I'll forget you destroyed my clothes. Actually I won't forget that, fuck you."

"I'm too tired for your bullshit, KK." Silence reigns for a minute, broken only by the faint buzz of a passing set of bees.

"Did I fix it?" Karkat asks suddenly, trying and failing to follow them with bleary eyes as they loop and twirl. A slim hand covers his, long fingers sliding between his own, and he forgets the bees.

"You can't fix it," Sollux mumbles. "But right now..." His voice trails into indistinct murmurs and he shifts, leaning on Karkat more heavily.

"What?"

"I feel good, KK," he says, barely conscious. "You were so good." Karkat turns his hand over to press his palm against Sollux's, too tired and hazy to care how awkward it is.

"Told you I knew what I was doing," he manages before lapsing into a colorful sleep.


End file.
